Margutte is hibernating for a month.
Platonic Diversions
Religion
JONATHAN SWIFT We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. (from “Thoughts on Various Subjects”)
Is Bringing Melancholy On Ourselves Useful?
FRANCES FAHY I was writing a piece when I realised that the song ‘The Parting Glass’ had started pecking at my brain like a robin at the window. For those who don’t know this song, it’s said to be of…
Greetings from Mondovì: Heatwave
LESLIE MCBRIDE WILE It’s hot here, seems it’s hot most everywhere in the northern hemisphere. Local temperatures haven’t been murderous, nothing above 38 degrees (about 100 Fahrenheit), nothing like reports of 45-plus on Sardegna and Sicily. But uncomfortably warm, the…
Rewriting Calvino
GABRIELLA MONGARDI. Abstract: an article of Gabriella Mongardi about the city of Mondovì, compared to the “Invisible Cities” of Italo Calvino. Illustrations by Lorenzo Barberis: Le città nascoste Le città continue Le città e i segni
Greetings from Mondovì: A Hole in the Heart
LESLIE MCBRIDE WILE There’s a hole in the heart of Piazza. Our farmacia storica has closed its door under the portici, the metal gates pulled tight. The hand-painted sign remains above, as if some other pharmacy might come along to…
Greetings from Mondovì: A few words
LESLIE MCBRIDE WILE A few words—very few–as any attempt by me to make sense of or draw neat conclusions about 2021 seems presumptuous, futile, and redundant. It’s been a year, four seasons and 365 days, events unique and mundane, day…